A different view of the election.
This is what the red state vs blue state breakdown in America would look like if a state was as big as their vote count.. it would look much different..
Showing posts with label campaign 2012. Show all posts
Showing posts with label campaign 2012. Show all posts
Monday, November 12, 2012
Thursday, November 8, 2012
Now that the Republicans have Mitt Romney out of the way, the real race will begin for 2016 (the one they knew they'd be competing in anyway): Rubio Heads to Iowa
Sorry Mitt, all your friends had a backup plan.
Now that the Republicans have Mitt Romney out of the way, the real race will begin for 2016 (the one they knew they'd be competing in anyway): Rubio Heads to Iowa
Romney was 'shellshocked' that he lost on election night..
Jan Crawford of CBS news writes:
They just couldn’t believe they had been so wrong. And maybe they weren’t: There was Karl Rove on Fox saying Ohio wasn’t settled, so campaign aides decided to wait. They didn’t want to have to withdraw their concession, like Al Gore did in 2000, and they thought maybe the suburbs of Columbus and Cincinnati, which hadn’t been reported, could make a difference.
But then came Colorado for the president and Florida also was looking tougher than anyone had imagined.
"We just felt, ‘where’s our path?’" said a senior adviser. "There wasn’t one."
Romney then said what they knew: it was over.
His personal assistant, Garrett Jackson, called his counterpart on Mr. Obama’s staff, Marvin Nicholson. “Is your boss available?” Jackson asked.
Romney was stoic as he talked to the president, an aide said, but his wife Ann cried. Running mate Paul Ryan seemed genuinely shocked, the adviser said. Ryan’s wife Janna also was shaken and cried softly.
They were this shocked?
Obviously Mitt forgot about the primary debates when every other candidate told him and other Republicans that he would lose. And maybe he ignored changing demographics? And maybe he didn’t realize how many people would note his constantly evolving positions on issues.
Maybe the GOP should have went for the gusto and nominated Ron Paul just to see how that would have worked.
Instead they went the safe route, as they did with Bob Dole against Clinton in 1996. A repeat of the 90s is here.
Fair to say Romney will not run again? I think so.
Romney was 'shellshocked' that he lost on election night..
Wednesday, November 7, 2012
The GOP lament: Was it Chris Christie's fault!?
Robert Costa wrote a NATIONAL REVIEW article today, linked above, about the election results. What caused Romney to lose?
The quote on NJ Gov Chris Christie that caught my attention:
Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey, the adviser adds, is persona non grata in Romney’s inner circle. “He went out of his way to embrace the president during the final week of the campaign,” the adviser says. “It wasn’t necessary and it hurt us. Todd Akin, Richard Mourdock, and Chris Christie undermined the Republican message.”
Maybe Christie’s embrace of Obama hurt Romney. Maybe Chris Christie crying after Bruce Springsteen called hurt Romney. But in the end it helped his citizens, and quite frankly, it helped Chris Christie.
Think about it.. Your state just went through a disaster of monumental proportions. Entire towns are gone. An entire coastline is changed. What else CAN YOU DO but ask the President of the federal purse for help? What else can you do but put politics aside..? You have no option.
And on the political flipside? It’s a win-win for Chris Christie. Obama in office for four more years, and after 8 years of a presidency it’s easier for a different party to win.. In 2016, I bet Chris Christie runs for the presidency.. Romney losing this year allows him to do that. Obama being out of office by then allows him to have a weaker field to run against. And he will win in 2016. I say it now. Put it on the record.
ON this date, a date after 11/6/12, I say Chris Christie will win in 2016. Unless the Mayan calender ends in December and the world gets decimated by the mighty hand of the higher power. Otherwise Christie/Rand Paul (you read that right) wins in 2016 against …Clinton/Biden!
So sayseth the Coalspeaker. So sayseth the lord.
He certainly has legs big enough to fill the shoes.
The GOP lament: Was it Chris Christie's fault!?
Post-election-celebration: Now the hard part. Figuring out what, if anything, actually changed. Billions of dollars were spent. For...? What?
The election is over. WE CAN ALL UNITE and be thankful for that. The campaign mudslinging gets tiresome—even boring. The negative ads were so plentiful this year that, frankly, people stopped noticing them. It was just frightening images of President Obama and Governor Romney set Armageddon style music. But it’s over. We have a winner. And it happened long before many thought it would. No recount. No hanging chads. No computer glitches of concern—well, there were but as usual the media ignored the problems with electronic machines.
But what has changed?
Before the election yesterday, Democrats controlled the Senate, Democrats had the White House, and Republicans had the House.
After the election today? Democrats control the Senate, Democrats have the White House, and Republicans have the House.
This after billions of dollars spent on advertising!?
Billions of dollars spent to … keep everything the same?
I am not a money-man, a banker, or a fiscal prophet. But if someone told me to spend a billion bucks just to keep my house, my job, my car, and make no changes, I’d turn the cheek and take a risk by not doing it.
Our elections are getting expensive. The Supreme Court decision years back allowing corporations to give more ensured that. Are we getting more for the money, though? We certainly had our TV airwaves taken over by candidates this year. Billions upon billions of dollars spent while Hurricane Sandy victims still are without running water, electricity, and food. Billions of dollars on a campaign while wars continue.. while poverty abounds.. while people are working three jobs instead of two just to make ends meet. Billions of bucks on the campaign.
Just to keep the status quo.
And speaking of status quo, not to be glum while America parties, there is something coming on January 1 2013 that few are concerned about: The fiscal cliff. The moment when taxes increase for everyone in this nation all at one time. When government spending has issues.. when people’s deductions get affected.. when life fiscally as we know it changes. And Congress, the Senate, and the White House are fully aware of the impending financial doom. The cliff is fast approaching. Billions of dollars were spent to make certain that the SAME PLAYERS would be in Washington that brought us to the edge of this mess. As of right now, no serious attempts have yet been made to correct the problem, or divert it from happening. A lame duck session of Congress is coming. Maybe they will come up with a magic solution? Or just keep doing things as they have been done.
No changes.
Status quo.
It’s tough to say just yet what, if anything, will change as a result of President Obama’s re-election.
The nation is slightly divided. A pretty evenly split popular vote, though the President did have a resounding victory on the Electoral College map.
If I had to make any prediction about what changed, I’d say this: Republicans will have to deeply analyze their message and determine what they could do about it. Was Romney just a flawed candidate? Was Santorum right ..was Gingrich right..was Bachmann right? They all said Romney could not beat a sitting President. And Chris Christie sat this one out. Maybe he was thinking Romney loses, too, setting up a 2016 run (or walk for him) to the White House? Or maybe the Ron Paul wing of the party needs some more press. Or maybe the Green Party, the Libertarian Party, the Reform Party, and others, need to be brought into the big tent of media coverage that only covers two parties?
I don’t know.
But what I do know is that today, just like November 5 2012, everything feels quite the same..
Tuesday, November 6, 2012
Trying to read the tea leaves on TV
I was watching coverage of the election on all three major networks, CNN, Fox, and MSNBC. On those programs during interviews, Republicans look a little nervous and Democrats look a little overconfident. Not sure if my observations mean anything, it could just be that Republicans are nervous and Democrats are overconfident, or it could mean that exit polls show a substantial margin of victory for president Obama..
We won’t know officially until later, or even later than later, but I will continue to read the tea leaves and follow the airwaves along with reading as many websites and blogs as I can to find out if anyone can prognosticate who the president will be before the election gets called officially..
And what time the official recognition of a president comes? That is where the night could get long..
Final calls from pundits and prognosticators. Plus Katy Perry in a skin tight latex ballot outfit.
Election day predictions.. from pundits and soothsayers. Will they say anything if they are wrong?
Dick Morris predicts from a limb: Romney 325, Obama 213..
Michael Tomasky Obama 294, Romeny 244
Nate Silver: Obama 303, Romney 235
Michael Barone: Romney 315, Obama 223
Ezra Klein: Obama 290, Romney 248
George Will: Romney 321, Obama 217
Markos Moulitsas: Obama 332, Romney 206
Karl Rove: Romney 285, Obama 253
Jim Cramer: Obama 440, Romney 98
John Miller: Obama 294, Romney 244
Meanwhile, stars have made their pick. Springsteen, Lady Gaga, and others have appeared at rallies to sing for Obama. The latest is Katy Perry, whodecided to wear a skin tight ‘ballot’ outfit. Obama was checkmarked near her waist while Romney went blank near her crotch. 2012 is serious stuff. Minus Katy Perry.
Monday, October 15, 2012
You know how you can tell that Candy Crowley is a good moderator of tomorrow's debate?
This: Both campaigns aren’t happy with her and want her to play a limited role, even not wanting her to follow up with questions if she asks things that the spin doctors and talking points don’t cover during the debate.
Good luck Candy. We will be watching.
Friday, October 5, 2012
This is actually a pretty interesting NBC story about how and where Americans tuned into the presidential debate. Over beers and laundry.. and lots of other places as well. Sixty-one million folks watched.
A moment captured in time.
In 2004 George Bush was accused of having a listening device in his back during the debates, and now this year Mitt Romney is accused of using a cheat sheet
However the campaign says it was a handkerchief
Others may respond that only the elite use handkerchiefs
This is all getting to be too much. Wake me up when November ends
In 2004 George Bush was accused of having a listening device in his back during the debates, and now this year Mitt Romney is accused of using a cheat sheet
The debate rehash: A blown chance.. or purposeful tactic?
While I am certainly not a paid analyst that regularly opines on politics are strategies behind candidates surges or splurges, I will say this: The debate the other night was one of the most horrendous public appearances for the President in years. Some are chiding him for losing touch.. losing his fire in his tiny string bean belly. Some are arguing that Michelle Obama was angry the debate fell on their wedding anniversary. Chris Matthews almost had a coronary on MSNBC afterwards, in his anger that Obama doesn’t watch his program on that network with the 5,000 or so others that do. And finally, an immense Al Gore theorized that Obama’s brain was hit because of Denver’s altitude. So with all of these theories, I think mine will be just as good!!
I think President Obama purposely blew the debate. I think he purposely didn’t have the fire in his belly. I think he knew that the unemployment number that was released today was going to be good (And it was, if the numbers are credible, unemployment is now 7.8%) .. President Obama may have felt that letting Mitt Romney win one for the Gipper was good. At the beginning. Get that victory out of the way, let Romney talk about Big Bird and unemployment, and just buy time until the Friday jobs report came out.. reinvigorate the campaign, let the media have a firestorm of positive stories, and come in to the next debate swinging.
That strategy in my mind makes sense. It works. Romney gets good press.. Obama gets shocked media people live on TV with wide eyes speculating about why he did so poor debating Mitt, the man the media think is a twit.
Because Obama knows that the media will come back home again. He knew the jobs numbers would be positive. He knew that there are two more debates. And he knows that October can bring many surprises.
What he may not have bet though is that 61 million people tuned in—the highest number since 1980, then 81 mil watched Carter square off with Reagan. And if 40 million or so don’t tune in to the next couple matches, perhaps the strategy of blowing the debate will work against the President. Time will tell.
I have a last theory, though, on Romney. I think they dug up the folks who did Ronald Reagan’s hair to do Romney’s. He looked like Reagan, in some weird way. He even seemed to want to sound like him. I don’t know if it was on purpose, or maybe it was the red tie, or maybe it was the stage, but Romney gave Republicans a taste of the visual past, looking like a President they loved. While Obama’s downed lips and nervous head nodding gave Democrats a burst of anger.
Perhaps the President needs a teleprompter? Remember in 2004 when people said George W. Bush had a device in his back for Karl Rove to tell him what to say? Perhaps President Obama was hoping somewhere in the audience Robert Gibbs would come to the rescue with a screen to give him answers.
But I think not. I think he gave the match early on to Mitt. And next time the President will win the debate. Third debate? I will not predict that one.
But I will make this final prediction: The Joe Biden/Paul Ryan debate will be a match made in heaven for political observers. It should be filled with nasty comments, fireworks, and verbal mutiny. Maybe a part of Biden’s entourage will be those biker chicks he got so friendly with….?
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